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There was an imposing figure out on the WACA pitch the day before the game between India and West Indies. He was animated, he was tall, and he was passionate. Beside him was a shorter man. Who listened and smiled, occasionally looking at the deep backward square boundary like he was eyeing it off. In the nets there was another man who picked up a well-hit drive, spun around and prepared to launch a throw.

They were all spirits. Curtly. Richie. Clive.

There was another figure in the nets. Chatting, planning, working, training and hoping. One who could bat, bowl and field.

Jason Holder isn’t a scary fast bowler. Jason Holder isn’t pure top-order swagger. Jason Holder isn’t a cat in the field. Jason Holder is a young man who bats at No. 9, bowls medium pace and leads a fractured team. It’s an odd choice for a leader. An odd choice for your only hope.

It wasn’t a contest until he came in. In fact, before he came in, it was the end of West Indies. T20 had ruined their game. Infighting ruined their team. Old tactics clouded their strategies. Ireland had ruined their tournament. Business would end their future. They were ghosts who didn’t know they were already dead.

They say West Indies bat until nine. Today it started at nine.

Watching Dwayne Smith and Chris Gayle come out to bat was like watching a cricket team who hadn’t been paying any attention to the World Cup. A makeshift sloggy T20 opener and an ageing franchise star. Smith failed to guide the ball to third man. Smith failed to play a pull shot. Smith failed to run between the wickets. Smith failed. Gayle was dropped twice on the way to a 45-minute, 27-ball 21. On the way there, he helped run out Marlon Samuels.

At No. 4 was Jonathan Carter, a man without a single ODI before getting picked in this squad. He was out sweeping, like so many of the Associate players had been this week. Denesh Ramdin has a career batting average of 24.71. He was in at No. 5. At the start of last year he batted eight. This sentence is already longer than his innings. Lendl Simmons has been the form man of West Indies’ batting. In his last five innings he had scores of 45, 55, 102, 50 and 0. At No. 6 he looked cool, calm and in control, right up until the ball was caught at deep backward square. A six was scored second ball by Andre Russell, but there were only two other scoring shots in his brief innings.

West Indies, 85 for 7. Doom. Apocalypse. Ghosts.

At nine, the innings started.

In his first 20 deliveries, Holder scored six runs. There was no panic as the world condemned his team; Holder was just batting. When a partnership had formed, and his eye was in, he played shots. Not the other way around, like the other batsmen. There were straight sixes from fast bowlers. There was use of the feet to the spinners. He rotated the strike, built partnerships, batted with Darren Sammy, coached Jerome Taylor and took the West Indies to something. Not a total, but the hint of one.

Holder’s innings wouldn’t change history, it wouldn’t inspire the tiny nations that make up his team badge, it wouldn’t win the World Cup. But it was something, and the only something West Indies had.

There were two key moments as West Indies ran out on the ground to bowl. One was from Curtly Ambrose screaming at the team “We can win this”. The other was Holder, running ahead of his team on to the pitch.

They had the spirit of Curtly with them, they had his pitch, and they had a leader who was taking control.

They bowled like they knew this. Taylor was smooth. Holder was steady. Russell was quick. Kemar Roach was quicker. They attacked, they bounced balls, they lost control of the ball, and they pushed as hard as they could.

When pace and length wouldn’t help, Holder played with Virat Kohli’s ego, and won. For one ball he put all three men out on the leg side boundary, gestured for a short ball, and watched Roach bowl a wayward full toss instead of a bouncer to complete his elaborate bluff.

Holder brought on Dwayne Smith. Smith had not bowled in his last nine ODIs. The last time he did, his four overs went wicketless for 68 runs. But he also took 5 for 17 for Barbados when Guyana failed to chase 69 recently. Smith had Suresh Raina in his first over – it was some hunch. There was a time, when Holder’s Chennai Super Kings team-mates were in – Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni and R Ashwin – where you could see a very smart cricket brain at work.

Then at six wickets down, and 19 runs to get, something stopped. Holder had tried his quick bowlers. Russell’s last over had gone for ten. Roach’s last over had gone for nine. The spirit of Curtly had been replaced by the awful spin of Samuels and the gentle wobble of Smith.

The cricket-watching world rose up as one and abused Holder as Dhoni and Ashwin nudged their way to the final 19 runs. They seemed to believe West Indies had given up. And the man who they thought gave up, was the only man who never really seemed too.

Holder became the man fans abused for not closing out the match. Holder made mistakes, but without him, there would have been no mistakes to make. Holder opened up the match. Holder held the match up. Holder made the match a match.

Holder is not imposing. Holder is not a legend. Holder is not a ghost. Holder is West Indies as they are now. Imperfect. Flawed. Barely alive.

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People love to abuse, mock or belittle Darren Sammy. He is, after all, West Indies’ non-playing captain.

Most people don’t think he should be in the side, and even those who do don’t think he should be leading it. He’s a punchline or a punching bag. His medium pace is very gentle and his wild slogging is rarely effective. In his World Twenty20 winning side he is only more naturally talented than Johnson Charles, Denesh Ramdin and Samuel Badree.

Michael Holding, most cricket fans on twitter, and anywhere West Indies cricket gathers there are people that don’t want Sammy as captain of the side. Most of those people don’t want him in the side at all. He’s not good enough, he brings nothing to the side, Chris Gayle could do a better job and he’s taking the spot of someone better, is what they say. They say it a lot.

Sammy has heard all of this. He’s just a nice guy. You could imagine him at a friend’s party, being holed up in the corner by someone who is telling him he should step down because he isn’t good enough. Every day he plays for West Indies, he simply does his best. Sometimes it is not good enough, but you can see how much he tries, see how much he wants it, and see that he is trying to build something for the islands and cricket team he loves.

Tonight this barely-talented, slow-bowling guy who isn’t that good is the captain of the World Twenty20 champions.

His innings was as far from pretty. He barely kept out yorkers, hit crazily across the line, mistimed almost everything and bludgeoned a couple of boundaries in the last over. He heaved West Indies to a score that Sri Lanka could not challenge. This was a captain’s innings.

Off the field, Sammy has strolled around his tournament with a grin, always happy to chat, always smiling and never looking like a man under pressure. He is known as the “the unofficial nicest man in cricket”. Every press conference he has pushed unity of his many nations. He has done everything he can to keep his often-fractured team together. He is using this tournament to build something special. Something for the future. Something the people of the West Indies can be proud of.

“1st huddle conquered now on to the super 8 one people one team one goal wi bleed maroon…” from @DarrenSammy

With the ball, he came on at a time when Sri Lanka had thrust Angelo Mathews up the order. Mathews can score quickly, Mathews can get your run-rate back on track, Mathews is a big-game player, and Mathews is a closer. Sammy brought up his fine leg, knowing Mathews would be tempted. Sammy tried an offcutter and Mathews fell straight into his trap, missing the ball as it moved further away from him off the pitch. Mathews was no longer the match-winner. In his next over Sammy let one run through and collected the wicket of the last recognised batsman. This was clever and gutsy bowling from a leader.

Just having West Indies enter a tournament with a realistic chance of winning was a victory for Sammy. West Indies have not been travelling the world blazing all the teams they pass. They’ve played well at times against England, Australia, India and New Zealand. People have often talked up a West Indies renaissance before, but in the cold hard light of an international tournament it has fallen apart. To win this tournament you need luck, skill and timing.

“Booooom what a performance by team Windies. One team one people one goal one more hurdle. For the fans. Wi All In” from @DarrenSammy

In the field Sammy used his bowlers brilliantly. His use of Badree was different than normal, but perfect for the situation. He got through cheap overs from Gayle and Marlon Samuels to give himself flexibility. He used Sunil Narine as a strike weapon and someone who could be kept as a saver. And he had Sri Lanka batting the exact way he needed them to bat. Nothing ever got away from him and, even when Kulasakera was hitting out, he just brought back Narine to finish it all and not let his players get nervous. His captaincy was directly responsible for Sri Lanka’s failure.

West Indies were lucky to even make the semi-finals. New Zealand should have beaten them in their regular innings, but Narine was just too good and sent them to the Super Over. Then in the Super Over someone made a huge mistake. It was the only time West Indies truly looked like a team who wasn’t sure who their leader was. Samuels bowling the Super Over was just wrong, and was only undone by Samuels batting in the Super Over. A mistake like that, and the lack of cohesiveness out on the field while it happened, could have been enough for previous West Indies sides to lose their focus and play limply in the semi-final and fade away.

Instead they played their most perfect game and smashed Australia in every way.

Every single player on this team has a role. This is not a team of flashy show-offs who do solo missions. It is a talented team with a captain who trusts and manages his players the best way he can. In the final, they did not panic when they couldn’t score, they simply waited for their time. They did not panic when they couldn’t break through, they simply worked very hard. That is a team, and this team has a leader.

“Wi bleeding maroon for the fan..this is it … One team One people One Goal…” From @Darrensammy

In the final of the World T20, Sammy ended with 2 for 6 off two overs, 26 off 15 balls and a trophy. It doesn’t sound like non-playing.

Sammy is the man no one wanted as a player. Sammy is the man who no one wanted as a captain. And Sammy is the captain who has given his team their first major ICC trophy since 1979.

“This is it for the fans wi bleed maroon wi came wi saw and wi conquered. One team one people and the goal was achieved” From @Darrensammy

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George Bailey and Xavier Doherty have known each other since they were kids. Tonight Bailey tested that friendship by throwing Doherty into a vat of acid to see if he could swim. Doherty was demolished.

There was no one other than Bailey who thought bowling Doherty in that last over was anything other than a colossal mistake. West Indies had the two people in world cricket most likely to eat Doherty alive with the bat in their hands. They were well set, relaxed, already had a big total, and had cartoon drool coming out of their mouths as Doherty held the ball at the top of his mark.

Doherty’s first two overs had gone for 23, it was probably his worst bowling performance of the tournament already, and now he had six balls at Pollard and Gayle when they only had one thing on their minds, how far they could hit him.

To his credit, Doherty looked reasonably calm as he walked up. There was no reason to be calm. The score was already 180, and Australia had only taken three wickets. He and Bailey placed the field carefully, although it seemed like a waste of time even then.

The first ball was a disaster. It couldn’t have been worse. A finger-spinner bowling a knee-high full toss to Chris Gayle is like throwing a cabbage at Swamp Thing. Gayle just hit it. He’s been hitting full tosses for six since he grew fingernails in the womb. Sometimes you hear the commentators say that low full tosses can be really hard to get away. They don’t mean this kind; this kind is hit for six by players who don’t hit sixes. Gayle smashed it.

Brad Hogg had been the pick of the spinners in this match, he had an over left. David Hussey was quite often used at the death, he had two overs left. It’s doubtful whether any other captain would have thrown the ball to Doherty, or found a situation where he thought it was the right thing to do. Doherty is good at the start, against South Africa he set up the match with the new ball. He slides the new ball well, and gets just enough purchase to make the batsmen worry. At the end he seems like a less-viable candidate as he has little mystery and seems to come onto the bat really well.

The next ball had to be something special, it had to land to begin with. It had to be out of Gayle’s arc and it had to stay on the playing surface. Doherty showed that he was calm and good enough to bowl the finger-spinner’s trusty retort, the fired-in one at the pads. Gayle couldn’t smash it, he couldn’t do much with it at all, he just let it hit his pad and limp a single.

In normal life, and for large parts of the rest of the innings, Gayle being off strike had been Australia’s dream. It seemed much of their tactic was simply to keep him from being on strike. Considering Gayle had batted the entire 19.2 overs, and the score wasn’t 300, it had worked. But now Kieron Pollard was in. Pollard is someone who can look rubbish at the start of any tournament or series, but then he warms up. Considering he often struggles against real pace, and he’d just driven a 150km yorker for four and scooped another one straight over his head, it was quite clear he was the Killer Kieron, not the Pillock Pollard.

Doherty went straight at him on a length, probably thinking he could slip one through him. As he saw Pollard get down on one knee, he must have even thought he’d got under the bat on a pitch where the spinners had kept the odd ball low. Instead Pollard slogged it hard to midwicket, flat and dangerous. Hogg came around, and flung his hand at it, but was probably lucky it didn’t take his hand for six as well.

This was now horrible for Doherty. Much like in Adelaide.

Doherty’s often been thought of as a good limited-overs bowler, but many were shocked when he was brought into the Australian Test squad. The man had a stutter ball, was often calm under pressure and had good control, but nothing about him screamed Test bowler. He was clearly brought in as the left-arm equivalent of Nathan Haurtiz, a stocker bowler who could keep the run-rate down.

In Adelaide, Kevin Pietersen ruined that theory. Pietersen looked like he wanted to take out all his previous bad-form frustration and problems with losing the captaincy out on Doherty. It was brutal punishment, and the one thing Doherty was supposed to do, he couldn’t. Pietersen was simply too good, too aggressive, and Doherty was yanked from attack between the 65th to the 103rd over. Bowling between overs 65 to 80 was one of the main reasons he was in the side in the first place.

Yet again he had a KP tormenting him. And his fourth ball was a low full toss, the one that is supposed to be hard to hit. Pollard hit it hard. He cleared long-off with it. West Indies had now scored 19 runs off the over, and were 199.

Doherty’s over was now beyond horrible, and there were still two balls left. Doherty bowled seam when he was a kid, and he resorted to what seamers do when the batsmen is hitting them everywhere. Full and straight. Perhaps Pollard moved back in the crease, maybe Doherty missed the blockhole by an inch or two, but Pollard just blew it away for another six.

The West Indies had now jumped the magical 200-mark. Even the superhuman Shane Watson would struggle to get Australia there. The last ball from Doherty was much like when he took the wicket of KP in Adelaide, it meant nothing; all the damage was done, and would be replayed for years to come. Pollard slicing the ball to long-off was not a victory for Australia, Doherty or Bailey; it was just a chance to leave the field.

By the time Bailey was next involved in the game, Australia could not win the match. Bailey played perhaps his best innings for Australia. It showed guts, determination, took a swipe at his many detractors and was the only reason Australia made it to triple-figures. There was proper anger in his batting, he really wanted to make a mark. It was also like screaming at a hurricane.

For Doherty there was no fightback, saving grace or moral victory; he was simply the victim. The only screams for Doherty were screams of laughter from the people who’ve never had to bowl the last over of an innings at two of nature’s perfect killers while the cricket world watches.

Result: All the Australians still have their teeth, Johnson Charles is a member of the illuminate.

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Nineteen off 21, 11 off 11, 23 off 25, 21 off 25 and 19 off 22. It’s a start for Australia, but not much more.

Meg Lanning, Jess Cameron, Lisa Sthalekar, Alex Blackwell and Jodie Fields all looked good at times, but none kicked on, in strike-rate or total. It was like they all had an invisible wall they would run into as they approached 25. It meant that the total of 115 was just within reach of West Indies, even without Stafanie Taylor or Deandra Dottin adding anything to the total.

It was the Australian bowlers, led by the miserly Sthalekar and the wicket-taking Perry, who made 115 look far more impressive than it was.

The important thing is the Aussies still won, and made the final. The worrying thing is that not a single Australian batsman has made a half-century in this tournament. In fact, the highest score is 42. Forty-two. It’s not what you expect to see of a team which has made it through to the final. It’s what you expect of a team that didn’t even qualify for the semis.

India, who didn’t qualify for the semis, have a 50 in this tournament from Poonam Raut.
Australia is clearly the second-best team in this tournament; West Indies and New Zealand both have good players, India has Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, and Sri Lanka, South Africa and Pakistan are a level below at this stage. But England just look far ahead.

England barely worked up a sweat while beating Australia and New Zealand easily in their last two games. When their batsmen get in, they make big fast scores, generally in match-winning partnerships. For some reason, the Australians are not doing that. It’s not like their batting line-up lacks talent. Lanning is a very good player, Cameron can smack the ball, Sthalekar is pure class, Blackwell holds the middle order together, Healy strikes well and Fields plays like Australian wicketkeepers have for decades. But you don’t win many finals with a run-a-ball 20-odd.

On a pitch with little spin, acting was slow and low, West Indies choked Australia with 10 overs of spin to start the match. It wasn’t a tactic especially to slow Australia, just something the Windies had been using all tournament, but Australia never really handled it well. There were some boundaries, and some singles, but not enough of either, and never a good combination of both.

The West Indies bowlers were all decent, and they worked well together, but Australia should have scored far more. Jodie Fields said they would have been happier with 140. They shouldn’t have lost as many wickets as they did. They should have worked the often-strange field placements of the West Indies. They should have just done better.

Australia have one last chance to get it right, but they won’t be playing the plucky West Indies side, they’ll be playing the most brutal and unforgiving team in world cricket. A team full of match-winners, who all know their roles, and who will expect to win the tournament they have dominated so far. They are talented, well schooled and the most professional team in women’s cricket. To beat them, you need to be at your very best. A succession of super-fast cameos might help you win. An epic innings often will.

Australia may be the reigning champions and these conditions might be different to Galle, but they will need to significantly improve on this performance to make the final a fair fight. Stacking up another pile of 20 odds won’t do it.

Result: Arisa Mohammad: One step into her run up, she leaps into their air with her arms touching the sky, then skins in, and bowls round arm finger spin off what appears to be from the wrong foot a mile back from the crease. Awesome.

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West Indies tours for Aussie fans are often dream-like. They’re late at night, often look like someone had smeared Vaseline on the lens and have a kicking soundtrack. It also means that more people hear about great deeds by Aussie players in the Caribbean, than actually see them.

It also means when something happens in an ODI series as Australia tour the West Indies that no one cares about, few fans notice.

Had they stayed awake, looked through the soft-focused Vaselined screen and kept the sound down as not to wake anyone in the house, they would have seen one man tormenting the Australian batsman:Sunil Narine. In a five-match series he took 11 wickets at an average of 14.45 and a scary economy rate of 3.32. He stopped the top order from scoring and dismissed the middle and lower order with ease. Narine was still a mystery to world cricket, his faux-hawk was barely known, his mystery knuckle ball was unplayable and his offspinner gripped and ripped off the dusty surfaces. It was even before he became a cult hero in the IPL.

In the oppressive heat of Sri Lanka, Australia will again meet West Indies, a side who have many players who can win a T20 match on their own. Chris Gayle can decapitate a bowling unit, and he’s done that to Australia before. Marlon Samuels can score with ease and make decent bowlers doubt themselves. Dwayne Bravo changes the game with the bat, the ball or with his hands. Kieron Pollard can score at a strike rate that previously never existed. Fidel Edwards bowls swinging yorkers. And even backup players like Andre Russell are capable of amazing destruction.

Yet when the West Indies looked like they would lose to New Zealand and fall out of the tournament, it was Sunil Narine who bowled two overs for only five runs in the 17th and 19th of the match. He also took two wickets.

Australia have already shown they can beat West Indies at the Premadasa in this tournament. In that match, Narine bowled two overs for 15 before the rain came down before he got to bowl his last two overs, and the Australians played him quite cautiously. If they find themselves in another big chase, with a soaring run rate required, their battle with Narine could be the difference between playing in the final or not.

The group game against West Indies was not all smooth sailing for Australia. They punished their bowlers and actually should have made more than the 192 they ended with. No Australian bowler went for less than seven-an-over. The West Indies handled the pace of Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins easily, Johnson Charles aside. Dan Christian just didn’t look like a viable option with the ball. Brad Hogg tried hard, and took one of his two wickets in the tournament. And Glenn Maxwell got Gayled for 17 runs in his one over. But it was a great pitch for batting, as the Australian top order showed when they smacked the West Indian bowlers everywhere.

While all of Australia’s matches have been in Colombo, the pitch has changed on Australia. It is no longer the pace-friendly wicket of late September, it’s quickly becoming the spin-happy track of early October. The constant use of this square has brought it back in favour of the spinners and sub-continental batsmen.

Starc and Cummins’ pace was a real factor at times early in the tournament. Cummins beat up the Indians and barely went for a run. Starc was almost as good against the Pakistanis and took three wickets. Sohail Tanvir showed that, even though the pitch is spinning more, the fast bowlers could still be important, although their pace will be less so against West Indies.

But there is no doubt that spin will play a massive part from here on in. The England v New Zealand women’s match was dominated by the English spinners, and for the first men’s semi-final the ball continued to spin considerably. Xavier Doherty came in for Christian a few matches back and has by far been Australia’s best spin option in this tournament. His early wickets against South Africa set up the game, and against Pakistan he took the wicket of their best batsman Nasir Jamshed.

Brad Hogg has struggled far more. It’s not that Hogg has been a catastrophe; he’s just not had the impact he had when he first made his comeback. His economy rate of 7.5 is fairly high – only Cummins is worse for Australia – and Hogg’s batting is now non-existent. At the age of 41 his eyes can no longer allow him to bat like a man with an average of 35. Australia are yet to bat all the way down in this tournament, and they may not, but Hogg is now probably Australia’s No. 11.

With the middle order struggling to get a hit, or look good when they do, it seems Glenn Maxwell is the man who may make way for David Hussey. Maxwell has done little wrong, but he is being barely used as a bowler, and has had little chance to perform with the bat, only batting twice in the tournament for one failure. It would also be a panic move from Australia, as Hussey was in terrible form in the UAE, and most of the Australian middle order have had only one chance to bat under pressure.

Australia could also drop Hogg for David Hussey. Maxwell and Hussey could combine as the fifth bowler whilst strengthening the batting. When Doherty came in for Christian, Australia lost another batting option, this would fix that problem, and while Hussey’s bowling is not of the standard of Hogg’s in the real world, this is T20, where Hussey’s step, step, sling, offspin can work.

On paper the West Indies side looks like a side that should beat Australia, but on the field they seem to be unsure and their decision to bowl Marlon Samuels in the Super Over against New Zealand seemed to stem from the input of too many people apart from Darren Sammy. They are a dangerous opponent, but one that Australia will believe they can beat.

They had a swing bowler in form, a quick bowler who could sling yorkers, more all rounders that you could fit in a small car, a mystery spinner, a skiddy spinner, the Pollard, the Gayle, and even the Johnson Charles.

If they were a gun, they’d be a bazooka, with a machine gun and flame thrower attached.

But the team I saw in my head, which was a combination of the new West Indies and the IPL West Indies, has gelled much the same way the bazooka flame machine gun would.

Chris Gayle coming back has thrown out the alignment completely.

Gayle is a natural leader, it’s because he feels he’s cooler and better than other other people, and his shoulders. They’re leadership shoulders.

As a leader he’s much like a male lion, as a captain he’s much like a banana sandwich.

For all the talk of how rubbish Darren Sammy is as a player, he’s done pretty well as a player and seems to be growing a young team with talent.

Sammy is not a big macho man, he’s a nice guy, I like him, I’d have a beer with him or let him buy me a meal, but he’s not an aggressive leader.

The chat before the last over of the regulation overs was bowled showed that. In the end Samuels bowled it because Sammy and Andre didn’t want to.

It looked like a man who did not want to lead from the front.

When Marlon Samuels bowled the super over instead of Sunil Narine, it looked like Chris Gayle had used this big shoulders to move Sammy aside during the meeting.

Maybe I’m wrong, and Sammy just got sucked up in the masculine Jamaican aroma when Gayle and Samuels were next to each other.

Either way, Sammy (or whoever) made the sort of decision you make at three AM when almost everyone has left the club except that person of questionable gender with the mole that looks like Richard Dreyfuss on their forehead.

Forget about the fact that anyone who understood the basic principles of cricket would have picked Sunil Narine.

Think about what had just happened. In an over of top pressure, batting with a bloke who hadn’t faced a ball, Ross Taylor had scored 13 runs off Samuels while getting a great sighter of exactly how he was going to bowl in the next over.

The field placings were terrible, Marlon Samuels will need to ice his arm like a pitcher after it, and the super super super subs was a nice touch.

They deserved to lose on every level.

That they didn’t was because in their batting super over these Jamaican big swinging dicks were immense, and Tim Southee swallowed his own teeth.

Sammy’s problem is that these two now have even more power, even more bravado, even more respect from their team mates.

In the next game expect Marlon Samuels to open the bowling in tandem with Chris Gayle, bat wherever they want, field wherever they want and Darren Sammy will be trudging from long on to long on.

Result: Ross Taylor finally came back to the World T20, Sunil Narine delivers magic aura balls.

Other people often get them right, I either leave abruptly and do it wrong, or I hang around and make everyone feel like I may never leave.

To say a goodbye you need a good closing line, and even if I find one, I’ll step on it or say a 2nd closing line that ruins the first.

Ireland leaves abruptly, although, it’s not their fault.

Their like the people you never really got to know, but bonded quite well with, but when you look for them to say goodbye, someone tells you they left earlier.

Even though they haven’t made a big impact on you, you feel like you missed out on the closure.

This goodbye would have been awkward, because you can’t defend 129 in 19 overs on a good pitch with your best bowler emptying every piece of fluid he has out of his bowels in the team hotel. You just can’t.

But we got no goodbye at all. We couldn’t even jokingly call Johnston a minnow as we shook his hand, or call suggest that Porterfield stop facing the new ball, they’re just gone.

Covered in Sri Lankan rain and Irish vomit they head for the airport.

See, that’s probably what you shouldn’t say in a goodbye.

Result: You got to say look at the O’Briens for a couple of overs. And Chris Gayle danced.

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It was a breezy night in Colombo; the smoke should have cleared from the ground. It didn’t.

The Australians were forced to play perpetually under this hazy cloud of doom. Every time a West Indies player hit a six the fireworks went off, sometimes straight at them, as if to add burn wounds to the wounds from Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels. The wounds from Gayle were largely self-inflicted as Shane Watson dropped him before he’d even got started.

It was perhaps only this smoke cloud that slowed West Indies down.

George Bailey spent so much time talking to his bowlers his voice must have turned into the mwa mwa mwa mwa of the adults in Peanuts. Always with a calm look, and even a smile. I wonder if he has two smiles, and whether long-term team-mates of Bailey can tell the difference from his natural smile and the one he puts on as he jogs over as someone looks for the ball. A few more nights like this, and Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell will be able to tell the difference.

Bailey tweaked, shuffled, changed, renovated, modified, adjusted and occasionally transmogrified his fielders. He could do nothing to stop the magnificent monstrous murdering that the West Indies batsmen dished out on his hapless bowlers. Bailey has been under much pressure from fans, Ian Chappell and about the non-selection of David Hussey – he didn’t need a night like this.

That would have been how I’d written the game up if the rain had came an hour earlier. Yet 9.1 overs into the Australia innings, they’d made West Indies look like slow movers. David Warner didn’t even need Watson at the start, he was on mission of destruction, and might have been unlucky to be given caught behind. From there Mike Hussey and Watson hit the ball wherever they pleased. They hit it hard, hit it often, and by that magical 9.1 over mark, it was only the biblical downpour that could stop them.

The question mark over Australia is their Hussey-less middle order, with Mike at No. 3 and David carrying the drinks, it seems their most likely weakness. It would have been a great test for them in this innings. Had West Indies got any wickets, the middle order would have been given a brilliant platform to chase a large total in a match that didn’t matter if they won or lost.

Instead they ended with an easy 17 run D/L win, the pressure of the final overs lost under inches of rain.

People will still question Bailey’s job, the bowlers ability to stop the flow and the seemingly questionable middle order, but Australia has won two from two so far, which is quite far from the apocalyptic visions earlier in the night or before the tournament began.

Result: My pick to win the whole tournament bowled like cricket had been invented just to embarrass them, and they dropped a catch even the Afghanis would have laughed at. Shane Watson was MOTM, and when the happens, the whole world smiles.

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Mysteries get solved in an hour on TV. Law and Order, CSI and Midsomer Murders have all confirmed this for us. But for Sunil Narine, one day with 15 overs, no wickets and 69 runs is not the conclusion to the story.

Narine has had a charmed existence for many reasons since he entered top-level cricket. He wasn’t thrust in as a teenager. The pitches he has played on have been exceptionally sympathetic to spinners. He’s played when people are trying to slog him. And no one can pick him. Today was different.

The pitch was good enough for a No. 11 to make a record score. Graeme Swann didn’t take a wicket. And the England players could wait for the bad balls, rather than attacking him. Also, Narine bowled poorly.

That kills me to say it because I really believe he could be a special talent. But if this was the first time you’d seen him, you could be forgiven for thinking Shane Shillingford should have got another game.

Narine bowled far too many bad balls. There weren’t many absolute howlers. But his length was consistently wrong. It was too short. As I nerdishly obsessed over his pitch map, it was clear that at least a third of his deliveries were just too short.

While Graeme Swann was consistently at the four metre mark, Narine was dropping them at the six metre mark. That’s not good enough for a top class spinner. Good batsmen just milk that for singles and the odd boundary. Then to compensate he floated up half volleys.

In their own ways, KP and Bell have had their own problems with spin. I think both would have been happy to face Narine for the first time with half volleys and half trackers coming at them.

Once KP saw that Narine was struggling, he ripped his chest apart and yanked out each individual organ. Back foot drives, front foot sixes, and scoring at will from a bowler who looked like he had no plans at all.

Even off the pitch England were attacking Narine. In the Sky box Nick Knight showed that for the knuckle carrom ball (still weirdly unnamed), Narine had a potential giveaway. Using his thumb on the ball for that delivery, but not for his normal offspinner. A few quick checks on youtube prove that isn’t always the case. But it’s decoding the mystery.

Not that England needed to decode the mystery. Bad lengths helped them, but so did the lack of turn for his knuckle ball. By design it can never be a ball that turns viciously, but it barely whispered at all. Making it more like a non sizzling arm ball that limps on a pitch like this.

Even against the awkward-looking nightwatchman in fading light with a collection of fielders looking for a chance, Narine still struggled to look capable of bamboozling anyone. It was his easiest chance for his first wicket in Test cricket.

This was an ordinary display from Narine. He would have expected to do better, at least of keeping the scoring rate down, if not taking a wicket or two. His day could have been better had Adrian Barath taken a sharp chance at short leg from Ian Bell. It is a place that if Narine does have a successful career in Test Cricket many catches will go to. Today it was just another disappointment.

There were also good signs. Darren Sammy didn’t hide Narine away, and he even kept attacking fields for as long as possible. Narine might have lost the swagger he had in the IPL, but he didn’t fall apart. And his offspinner, when pitched in the right place, is still a staggeringly good delivery that should test batsmen all over the world.

Even with today, I’m not willing to right off Narine on a pitch that the only wicket for spin to either side went to the smooth straight’uns of Marlon Samuels. That doesn’t mean for lovers of quality spinners, Narinites and mystery spinner buffs (of which I’m all three) today wasn’t a bit like the opening scene of one of those crime shows where two people sharing banal conversation bump into a corpse in a dumpster.